


there's a room where the light won't find you

by cassandralied



Series: a little of you & a lot of bloodletting [5]
Category: Dracula (TV 2020), Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Eye Gouging, M/M, Tagging everything I can think of, Torture, it's not sexual torture but? dracula's clearly enjoying it so, to those of you who said you liked asshole dracula? this is to make you regret that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22193029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandralied/pseuds/cassandralied
Summary: Jonathan heals. Dracula experiments.
Relationships: Dracula/Jonathan Harker
Series: a little of you & a lot of bloodletting [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592500
Comments: 14
Kudos: 175





	there's a room where the light won't find you

On Wednesdays -or at least, according to the Count, they’re Wednesdays, but he’s exactly the type of person to lie to distort someone’s sense of time and they do seem to come with fewer than seven days in between -Jonathan is taken into a small room in the bowels of the castle and tortured to see if he’ll heal. At least, that’s Dracula’s justification for it, but the sheer delight in his laugh when he finally gets Jonathan to scream says otherwise.

This particular time involves Dracula removing Jonathan’s fingers like pulling wings off flies.

“You’re doing beautifully, Johnny,” he soothes, and rips the pinkie off, _snap_. “I just want to see how much you can take, dear. The others never healed, even when I asked them nicely. But just _look_ at you go.”

Jonathan screams again and tries to curl in on himself, sobbing, but the chains prevent it.

“Now, tell me, do you consciously will yourself to heal or does it happen automatically?”

His chest heaves, a human reflex that he hasn’t yet unlearned. The Count’s gaze is cool, detached, even as he sucks idly on what had been his prisoner’s pinkie finger. He taps Jonathan’s lips with his own severed finger, mocking. “I asked you a question, dear.”

“Go to hell,” Jonathan manages. His own blood tastes like rot and decay.

Dracula sighs dramatically (the best imitation of a sigh from someone who doesn’t breathe) but he’s not trying to hide his amusement. “And we were getting along so well, too.”

Jonathan’s fingers are beginning to grow back, but he clenches his hands into fists to hide them. He’s shaking with something he wants to believe is rage as Dracula slowly, _slowly_ , begins to reach that awful long finger into the corner of Jonathan’s eye, _scooping_...

The Count leaves him, after what feels like years, once he’s bored watching Jonathan’s limbs regrow for the day. He drapes that long velvet cape over Jonathan’s shivering form like he’s tucking in a child. “Don’t get any tears on it,” Dracula says dispassionately. “I suppose bloodstains can’t be avoided.”

Jonathan barely registers what he’s saying, the educated Englishman having retreated to the furthest corners of his brain as he pants and snarls like a beast.

“Mm. Lovely. You do look _so_ pretty broken, Johnny.” Dracula leaves him with that terribly genuine compliment, and Jonathan doesn’t move for hours until he’s sure his captor isn’t coming back.

It’s Kat who comes to find him, actually. Jonathan tries not to wonder, later, what would have happened if she hadn’t. Would Dracula have left him, in this weakened state, to starve?

She crouches down in front of him, and her eye socket twitches. “Y-yyyuhg,” she manages in an oddly soothing down, and strokes her long fingers through Jonathan’s hair. She bites her wrist, hard, and holds it to his mouth. He looks up at her weakly, and she gives him a foul glare with that one icy eye.

He drinks.

Vampire blood tastes like pestilence and dead things, but it does the job well enough, and Jonathan finds himself healing faster. He sits up, wrapping himself in the Count’s cloak as if this walking corpse cares a bit about his modesty.

Kat gestures for him to follow, and leads him through the maze back to his room. Not _Dracula’s_ room, but the guest room that had been Jonathan’s when he was living. She stands stiffly, eyebrows high, mouth so very red. They stare at each other.

“Thank you, Kat,” Jonathan whispers into the silence.

She steps back into the shadows, not breaking eye contact until she’s fully gone.

Jonathan collapses into the bath, turning the water black in the candlelight. He’d always liked bathing. Mina had, too.

He flings the Count’s cloak out the window in a fit of pique.


End file.
